Photo Essays, Spot News and Stock Photography

Archive for ‘December, 2016’

In the true spirit of Christmas we are presenting two photos taken during the same time period. The lead photo is the “Mojave Memorial Cross”; Cima, California c.1950. This is the original Mojave Memorial Cross which has since been replaced. The Cross has been a subject of contention for many years. Below is a photo that we call “Cross at the Lake”; U. S. c.1947. Merry Christmas everyone!

It must be remembered that many Japanese cities including Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe were destroyed by fire bombing. Incendiaries. The lead photo, “The Bombing of Japanese Cities: Black Rain”; Japan (1945), shows a destroyed Japanese city. “I was 10 when the B-29 came. My family lived underground for three days. When we came up the city was gone. Then the heat brought rain. Black rain. You made the rain black, and shoved your values down our throats.” Sugai – from the film “Black Rain”.

We recently acquired this photo that we call “Blue Collar Man“; U. S. c.1940. Considering the shift in the dynamics of the electorate in the United States at this time, we find this image quite appropriate.

This is what happens to a people when a psychotic demagogue takes power. Perhaps it speaks to an extreme case, but when a person comes to power who institutionalizes the “cult of the personality” advocating that only he has all the answers repression in all its forms becomes the norm.

A study of geopolitics reveals that there are no right or wrong answers. There are no absolutes. There is only a position that is more right then wrong, and the side which is usually the most committed wins. U. S. policy toward China has featured a one China official recognition for decades. We need to remember that we are a republic in existence for a little more than 200 years while Chinese civilization in the dynastic period is over 4000 years old. Their prehistory predates the dynasties by thousands of years.

The current buzzword is “fake news”. In the 1930’s it would have been called the “big lie” as Goebbles perpetuated his propaganda. The point is made that if you say something often enough and loud enough people will begin to accept it as truth. So it was that the hatred against the Jews depicted in Hitler’s Mein Kampf came to be systematically institutionalized in the Nuremberg Laws a decade later. The slow unraveling of nothing less than genocide against the Jews was legal under German law. They were not the only people to face discrimination. Hitler railed against Slavs, communists, blacks, and many other groups. Where does the press figure into all of this?

You are looking at a photo taken in about 1890 in Norwalk, California. Pictured are members of the Clanton family. That should set off an alarm bell. Remember “Ike” Clanton of Tombstone, Arizona fame? “Ike” had a run in with Wyatt Earp at the O. K. Corral, but he was not killed at that gunfight. “Ike” was arrested and later killed while escaping after being charged with the crime of cattle rustling. See his short biography. “Ike” was a member of a very large extended Clanton family, and this photo shows the part of that family that settled in California. We assess that this photo was taken just several years after the death of “Ike” Clanton.